For The Sake of Arguments

David's essay "Evangelical Support for Trump as a Moral Project: Description and Critique" is the featured article in the January issue of the Religion and Culture forum. The article can be found here.From the abstract: "The rise of Donald J. Trump to the presidency has caused a crisis of misunderstanding in American politics. From the perspective of his critics, his ethos, rhetoric, and politics are so self-evidently evil, they cannot imagine how anyone could support him from anything other than depravity or ignorance. This essay makes the case that there is a deeper meaning beyond this apparently obvious one, and realistic political analysis requires that we recognize it. Barr argues that many American evangelical Christians support President Trump as an expression of a positive moral vision for American government and society. Drawing on the work of political scientist Benjamin Lynerd, Barr shows the deep roots of the affinity for Trumpism found in the political theology of American evangelicalism. Those affinities explained, it concludes with a turn to the thought of Reinhold Niebuhr and current research in the sociology of religion to show the errors and perils that result in and from it."